Posted: September 25, 2013 at 12:33 am
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September 25, 2013 at 12:33 am Hi, I’m using the latest version 3.1.35.P at http://www.mangomusicshed.com We’ve had a few instances lately where we have received confirmation emails from people, but they are not in the attendees list. Similarly, we have had a number of our courses (the strict limit is usually 10 places) where I have found that 12 places have been booked. Looking here: https://eventespresso.com/topic/missing-registrations/ and various other posts on the forum, it appears that the issue wit both appears to be the session staying open and then users (quite rightly in their mind) using their back button to go back and book another place. Our courses are either free or people pay at the session. It is causing us great embarrassment and hassle to have to phone people up to say “Sorry, we know you booked your place, but, erm, our system lost your booking” or “yes, we know you booked but our system shouldn’t have let you. Sorry, it’s full”. It makes us look ridiculous and is not the promised ease we bought EE for. Are you able to do something about these issues? Many thanks, Chris |
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Hi Christopher, We are constantly trying to improve the processes in Event Espresso so I am very interested in what is happening here. Let me explain what should happen first: The user registers for the event by filling out the form Once the session is closed, if they then go back via the back button, it will start the process of making a new attendee. However if they have not closed their session it will over write the existing one. They should be receiving a message alert when they try to go back to warn them that their details will be over written. So to work out what exactly is occurring, I need to ask you if you know anything more about the process that the user is doing. Are they receiving the warning message? Are they ignoring that message? By looking at your set up, my guess is that people are getting to the payment page and not clicking the Complete your Registration link in the Cheque gateway, as they see the “Pay by cheque at first session” message and consider the process done. The messages do appear when trying to navigate away from the page, so I am guessing they must not know to click that link, and are not sure how to proceed, so click OK and leave the page, leaving their session open. Regarding the overbooking, I think this is again down to the not clicking the Complete link. The users are being marked as incomplete, rather than Pending. As such they do not count to the max. attendance figures. Once they are marked as pending they are counted towards that total. Ideally getting them to click is best, but what you could also do is change the Default Payment Status option to Pending, either globally in the General settings so it affects all events, or individually in each event. |
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September 25, 2013 at 12:22 pm Dean, thank you very much for your swift and very thorough reply. It is much appreciated. After testing it for a while, I see your explanation is correct. Actually, I’ve had five people test the system this afternoon without any instruction and the long-winded description and suggestions below are the fruit of that testing. I can really see how these errors you described can happen as the user experience (even for me knowing what to expect!) is at times confusing. The first problem seems to me to arise from that fact that after completing the form the user gets a summary page with two links saying “Confirm Registration” This is our first big problem. Why doesn’t it just say “next step” or “step 2” or something. Now, on most other commerce websites (Amazon being the obvious example) if you get to an order summary page with a button saying “Confirm Order”, that will be the last step in the process . But in our case, not only is that not (as the user might expect) the last step. “Confirm Registration” sounds final and really cascades into the later errors. To compound this, they here a ping as the email arrives in their inbox/smartphone or both which adds to the feeling that the booking is done. There are actually two more steps which are really poorly executed and some very confusing information up front. The user will probably only scan the first bit of text on the page confirming in their mind that they think they have completed their registration. All of the other strongs cues they have already have amplify this. a) The initial text does “your registration” is not complete until payment is received” – but our users think that already as we have already given then only one option which is to pay at their course. b) they get a message saying “A confirmation email has been sent with additional details of your registration.” Again taking our Amazon example, that is the sign for them that they are done here. They already heard the ping too! So on this text-heavy page it is not at all surprising that they miss the very important white-on-white (Really!) button which is very low on the visual hierarchy of the page – – especially as the user could be forgiven for thinking that they completed their order already (see above). Every one of my testers struggled with this. At least on the previous page the “Confirm registration” link is a strong colour on white so it scans better on the page, but this button is so easy to miss. There is lots of other colour and emboldened text on this page so it is so easy to miss. 2) However if they do miss/ignore it then, they have no hope at all of seeing (because it is hidden! – again – really?) of the important “Complete your registration” link. This link again is so low in positional and visual hierarchy on the page. It has the same prominence as the mailing address or their registration id, but is right at the bottom of the page so scores lower. If this is the all important final step that if missed means their registration and session won’t complete properly, then this link should not be hidden and should be a huge 3em bright contrasting button that they can’t miss. The way it’s implemented now makes it all too easy to miss it. I appreciate that this may not be a typical case as we are not taking payment online, but it’s also not particularly strange. I also appreciate that you have put Javascript messages that pop up if the user leaves the page and, but they are a poor substitute for a clear and well designed user experience. Technically, I can see how and why the flow is how it is, but it really needs a few wording and design changes to make it more idiot proof. Let’s face it, you just need a few people not following the flow correctly to give you big headaches later. If the user experience is not clear, you really are then responsible for creating those “idiots”. So some questions/suggestions – i.e “can I…?” or “can you…?”. I am sure I can dig in the code and change some of these things, but they may be better done at your end to create a better out-of-the-box experience for everyone and so I don’t have to keep fixing them every time the plugin is updated. 1) Is it possible to change the text on the confirm registration page to “Next step “Go to stage two” or whatever.” Furthermore, could these labels be set by default, but changeable in the “advanced settings” etc of the plugin? 2) Could you have a progress bar at each stage of the process: i.e. 50% complete, or this is step two of 4 or whatever? These are very good from a UX perspective 3) Could the confirmation email not be sent until the thing is complete, which in my case does not come until way after it gets sent? 4) If (as in my case) – only one payment option is being offered, can this option must be selected by default? After all, why should the user have to complete another step when there is no other option? 5) PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE can the all important “Complete your registration” not be hidden when there is only one payment option? I totally understand why you are keeping it hidden until people make their choice, but if there is no choice… 6) Can the “complete your registration” not-very-important-looking link instead be a huge, impossible-to-miss, retina-staining, breath-taking, earth-shaking, call-to-action the like of which has never been known? Or could it at least be a little more prominent? 😉 Anyway, I’ve taken the time to write all this because I think your plugin is actually rather great: very simple but very powerful. I wan’t to make it work for us into the future and it’s sooooooo close to being just what we need. We just need to work on the UX a little to reduce the potential for errors. Thanks in advance. Christoph |
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Most of the UX changes you described can be made in files under the gateways folder or templates folder. You can copy those over to uploads/espresso/gateways or uploads/espresso/templates and your changes will be preserved from updates. If you want to make some progress bar images, for example, “1 of 4” would go into registration_page_display.php, “2 of 4” would go into confirmation_display.php, “3 of 4” would go into payment_page.php, and “4 of 4” would go into payment_overview.php. class="hide-if-js" from line 42 of invoice_vars.php (copy the whole invoice folder over to uploads/espresso/gateways) to make it not hide the link. The link itself is down on line 75, so you could move that up in the html if you wish. |
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Sidney, that’s great clear information. I’ll look at all that shortly. I do think you might take on some of the suggestions for a better out-of-the box experience though so that people don’t have to do this. Best wishes Chris |
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Thanks Chris, I’m not much of a designer myself, more on the troubleshooting side of the house, but we have recently brought a designer on board, so hopefully you’ll see some UX improvements soon. |
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Hi Chris, I can also add that the confirmation-page.php template can be changed to your specifications as well. So for example you can change the button text on that page by editing the line in the template, or even use a function to change the wording to whatever you want. Please note that for free events, the confirmation button is the last button clicked before the registration is final. Also, you can make the “confirmation” page not appear by disabling it in Event Espresso>General Settings. We have had similar feedback since 3.x was released and have taken on many like suggestions. This includes a new messaging system, a single page checkout, and a progress indicator. While I cannot disclose exactly when it will be released or what features will be/not be included at this time, the entire registration system in Event Espresso 3.x has been refactored and replaced with a single page checkout that will be released as part of Event Espresso 4.x. You can subscribe to our RSS feed if you’re interested as we are gearing up to add more previews in our blog like this one: |
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